:,;-;.H''^v;.>;5x, j,, . 




TRACKLESS REGIONS 

POEMS 



BY 



G. O. WARREN 



^ I journeyed in desert places where was no inhabitant 
And in trackless regions I pitched my tent. 
But there was given to me water out of the flinty rocky 
And healing for my thirst out of the hard stone.'' 



B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET 
mew lorft 

LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., FOURTH AVENUE, 30TH STREET 

MCMXVII 



.^ 









CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Poverty i 

Shadow , 5 

There was a World . 4 

Near and Far 5 

The Cell 6 

There is a Path 7 

Great Darkness g 

Night and Spring la 

The Messenger n 

The Reaper 12 

The Storm 13 

To A. C 14 

Spring and Resurrection 15 

The Deserted House i6 

The Wild Bird 17 

Where They Sleep 18 

The Cloud Ship i^ 

The Past 20 

The Scoffer 22 

Abyss 23 

Confession 24 

Twilight 25 

Myrtle and Yew 26 

The Exile 28 

A Married Woman , 291 

Memory and Autumn 31 

The Wreath 32 

The Mourners 34 

The Wanderer 35 

Sculptor of Men 36 

The Tapestry . 37 



spring and Winter 38 

Autumn Remembers 39 

The Sea Gull 40 

The Eagle 41 

Spring 42 

The Tide 43 

The Twilight Bird 44 

Autumn 45 

Flight 46 

The Lily of the Night 47 

The Moon ^. . . 48 

The Flower of the Moon 49 

The Ghost Star 50 

Tillers of Night 51 

Mysterious Harbour 52 

The Conquered City 54 

War Song of the Women 56 

The War Widow 58 

The Second Calvary ....... 59 

Out of the Dust 60 

Spring 61 

Winter 62 

The Wild Huntsmen 63 

Despair 64 

The Unburied Dead 67 

Belgium 68 

River of Death 69 

The Vineyard 70 

Darkened 71 

The Endless Army 72 

Sisters. To M. A. C 74 

She Willed That He Should Forget Ail Else . . 76 

The Chalice 77 



Hunger . ♦ . . 78 

The One 79 

The Living Voice 80 

Fireside 81 

A Vision of a City 83 

When I Must Die 84 

The Forest Pool 85 

Fear of Death 86 

Death and Life 87 

The Sower 89 

The Earth Shall Silence Music 90 

Life 91 

The Resurrection 92 

The Old Peasant .... ... 94 

The Garden 96 

The Artisan 98 

The Mountain ' 100 

Deep Waters • . 101 

Peace 102 

The Grail 103 

Question . 105 

The Deathless Voice 106 

Wilt Thou Sup With Me 107 

The Hiding Place 108 

Introibo ad altare Dei 109 

Silence no 

Prison- House of Grief in 

The Fire 112 

The Temple 113 

O Tropic Wilderness of Stars 114 

Reborn. 1914 — 191 — 116 

Dust . 117 

Sacrifice 118 



My thanks are due to the editors of the Atlantic 
Monthly, Pod Lore, and Poetry (Chicago) for their kind 
permission to reprint certain of the poems in this 
volume. 



** ThestorideSf full many things there are 
that mortals cannot sound : hut there is nothing 
more unfathomable than the heart of man,''^ 



** The harp was of three strings ; 
A string of iron, a string of noble bronze. 
And a string of entire silver. 
Goltarrgles was the other string 
Which sends all men to crying . . . . " 



POVERTY. 

" /« that hour when I am naught, then am I a man ? ' 
" Yea, for now the gods lift thee." 

ALL ye aflame with dark desire y 
•^^ Who eat the bread of loneliness. 
Know ye right well your house to keep. 
To light which fire, 
Which grain will bless ? 

Ye think I am a hapless wight, 
Who see my rags, my broken shoon, 
Ye know not how I sleep, how fare 
At chill midnight. 
At starving noon. 

I break my fast in city streets, 

When beggars drain my scanty bowl, 

— And quench my thirst. That I shall want 

Not they — is sweet 

And brims my soul. 



And this is how I rest ; at last 
My cloak bestowed, upon the ground 
I lay me down, wrapped warm in him 
Whose cold is past. 
Whose covering found. 

Beside the ashes of desire 

Ye drank the cup of bitterness^ — 

Knew ye right well your house to keep ? 

To light which Jire^ 

Which grapes to press ? 



SHADOW. 

ALL that I am I give. And yet the self I was 
Before you came, is gone. 
You never knew that self which looked into a grave ; 
How could you know my night who are my dawn ? 

This human light is sweet. Yet my love-dazzled eyes 

Turn back to grief again, 
Craving the presence of that soul- enfolding shade 
Woven of lonely question, human pain. 

Love, were you but grief-wise ! Could you but follow me 

To wander in that night 
Which though I fear to tread, yet whose mysterious dusk 
Beckons me, woos me from unshadowed light. 

But I must go alone. Though yearning still to see 

Your radiant heavens burn, 
Alone I enter darkness. O my Love ! grieve not 
If still my face be veiled when I return. 



B 2 



THERE WAS A WORLD . . . 

"And the man cried out saying: 

' Lo, thus hath this woman done unto me.' " 

THERE was a world I planted for my Love 
Budding with dreams, and trellised to the sky. 
My heart soared with its branches, touched the stars, 
But my Love mocked and passed it by. 

Why did I hear the words she spoke to me, 
Or take the blade she put into my hands ! 
Thin as a turning wave, and grey and cold — 
Like storm-pale water on dark sands. 

1 hewed my world down to its quivering root. 
While round me fell the wind-blown, starry leaves ; 
I made my autumn, made a ruined wood, 
Wild as when self itself bereaves. 

Yet bitterest of all, she praised me 

And on my broken dreams she laid her head 

Caressing . . . from their dying root upsprang 

The blossom that she craved, . . . dark . . . red . . , 



NEAR AND FAR. 

A WOMAN sits beside my fire, 
By my hearthstone, 
Yet I am bitterly alone 
With my desire. 

Between us drifts a purple sea, 
Unfathomed night. 
With myriad worlds in flight. 
Wild argosy. 

Between us whisper shrouded Fates 

The yea and nay 

Of what hath been alway, 

What Life to life relates. 

Between us sweeps the old crusade- 
Jerusalem ... 
She will not go with them 
Where Thou art laid. 

She sits and smiles beside my fire. 
By my hearthstone, 
And I am bitterly alone 
With my desire. 



THE CELL. 

STRANGE is it not, that she and I should go 
Down such divided ways ; ^ 
Our shared, yet distant days 
Rising to noon, fading to evening-glow, 

To fall at last in still remoter night ? 

Her folded hands, her feet, 

Her intimate heart-beat 

In sleep lie close to mine ; and yet the slight 

Thin veil of flesh has hardened into stone — 

A wall for hermit's rest. 

She sleeps against my breast, 

While I dream, like the anchorite, alone. 



THERE IS A PATH. 

Love said: "Lay down your burden and come forth^with me.'' 

But the woman answered "nay.'' 
And a dream whispered: *' I am the beginning and the end," 

But again she answered "nay." 

THERE is a path within a wood 
Where grow the trees of wild desire, 
Whose blossoms are a spreading flame, 
Whose fruit the very heart of fire. 

Within that wood by day and night 
A woman walks; and to and fro 

She moves on her appointed way 
As faithful silent pilgrims go. 

She hears the murmur of the leaves, 
And presses closer to her breast 

The life she shelters ; — on the wind 
The branches sway in mad unrest, 

And toss red flowers at her feet, 
To drive their fires to her heart. 

Yet hungrily she strains her arms 
About the life she holds apart. 



No leaping flame her spirit sears ; 

Sweeter than whispering of the trees 
There is a melody she knows, 

And quiet that her soul decrees. 

Never was life so safe as his 

That found such shelter from the fire, 
— Her breast — who, praying, treads the wood 

Where grow the trees of wild desire. 



GREAT DARKNESS. 

"0 Charidas, what is there beneath?" 
" Great Darkness." 

SHE knew how, far beneath the river, 
Under the swiftness lies the dumb black earth, 
Remote, indifferent to death or birth 
Or memory, or blessed gift or giver. 

That Time the scent from bloom is reaving 
She knew, and that no mortal hands can hold 

The spring, whose journey's end lies dark and cold, 
Unreached, unmoved by mortal hope or grieving. 

How that deep night her day must sever 

From mine, and how death's everlasting sleep 

Perchance no dream of love or loss may keep 
She knew, — and knowing, bound us one forever. 



NIGHT AND SPRING. 

I WHISPERED to the dying moon, 
** I wait for love, O Love come soon! " 
But dark with grief night gazed on me 
All strange and silently. 

I turned from night which answered not, 
And said to spring, " Hast thou forgot 
That sad earth decks her wintered breast 
Only at love's behest ? " 

Above me in the windless sky 
The aspen leaves hung tremblingly 
Like those who know, yet still delay 
The sorrow they might say. 

Love came at last, — how long ago ! — 
And now lies dead. Alas, I know 
Why spring, why grieving night were dumb 
When I prayed love to come. 



10 



THE MESSENGER. 

THERE stands a house among dead leaves 
Vacant and still. 
Under its grey bird-haunted eaves, 
I cross the sill. 

But not alone I enter there 
Where my Love died ; 
Dark Grief and I together fare, 
Together bide. 

" Come faithful friend. I'll show to thee 
The silent stair 

Where she last turned and looked on me, 
Thou, Grief, elsewhere. 

" Then lay thy hands upon my head, 
As she, of yore — 

For thou wert sent me in her stead 
Who heals no more." 



II 



THE REAPER. 

DEATH glides swift-moving up an endless field 
A ceaseless-swinging sickle in his hand, 
Nearer and nearer yet to where I stand 
With close embrace my trembling Love to shield. 

O Death ! one hour upon thy sickle lean, 
When wild birds darken twilight with their wings, 
And my Love lifts her head and sways and sings ; — 
How canst thou hear while thou dost reap and glean ? 

Ah, when the music of the living grain 
With thrilling murmur sweeps across the hill. 
Thou couldst not choose to be a Reaper still, 
Nor ever bind those silent sheaves again. 



12 



THE STORM. 

SHE reached for sunset fires, 
And lived with stars and the sea, 
The mountains for her temple, 
The storm for priest had she. 

Together a libation 
They poured to the God she knew, 
Such wine as ageless heavens 
And lonely wisdom brew. 

Now she has done with worship, 
For her all rites are the same ; 
Yet storm keeps green forever 
The moss upon her name. 



13 



TO A. C. 

1878 — 1914. 

OPEN before me lies a printed page, 
Where words from your deep heart 
Stand sentinels before a close-locked door, 
Your dwelling place, apart. 

They guard it still. Mysterious they stand, 
Quiet as you who rest 

Within the earth, whose night, already yours 
Within your daylit breast, 

Subdued your fires to their unearthly light. 
But I shall glide within, 

Past words, past circumstances, and past death ; 
Where other worlds begin, 

Behind us all the bitterness of this, 
Wherever you abide. 

There I shall come — your lonely rebel shade 
Forever walk beside. 



14 



SPRING AND RESURRECTION. 

j 

MUSING upon the miracle I 

Of wintered trees renewed in spring, i 
— When all they gathered patiently 

From age and death to birth they bring — \ 

J 
I stand beside a lonely grave 

Where, old and spent, beneath the snow 

She rests, and cry into the night ! 

For answers that no man may know. 

Though night is dumb, yet still my heart : 
Holds visions of a life re-born. 

Where all she learned from misery i 

Shall light her resurrection-morn. ij 



15 



THE DESERTED HOUSE. I 

I 

WE moved together through the trees ] 
And through long shadows, he and I, 

Like gHding moon, or soundless breeze, i 

So hushed we trod, so peacefully. i 

! 

But deep within the woods' dark night \ 

We passed a house forlorn and still, ' 

With windows dead for want of light, I 

And years of leaves upon the sill. i 

Then suddenly I knew for him, \ 

There dwelt within a Memory ^ 

Which leaned and beckoned, sad and dim, j 

Companionless, despairingly. | 

Though silent past that lonely door 

We went, as if unheedingly, j 

Yet my heart knew that now no more 

We fared together, I and he. 



i6 



THE WILD BIRD. ; 

LIKE silence of a starlit sky, j 

Like wild birds rising in the night, | 

Such was her dying, such her flight 

Into Eternity. 

i 
But I who dwell with memory, I 

Dream in my grief that she may soar 

Too high, and needing love no more 

Come nevermore to me. 



17 



WHERE THEY SLEEP. 

THE fog inrolling, dark and still 
Lies deep upon the crowded dead 
As flooding sea upon the sands, 
And quenches starlight overhead. 

Long have they slept. Their separate dust 
Has mingled with a nameless mould. 
Only the slower-crumbling stones 
Still tell so much as may be told. 

And now in shoreless fog adrift 
Like some lone mariner gliding by, 
I lean above the drowning graves 
And wonder when I too shall lie 

Where evermore the tides of night 
And earth will hide my lonely rest ; 
And Time will bid my love forget 
To read the stone upon my breast. 



i8 



THE CLOUD SHIP. 

GREEN -deep below me lies the harboured sea, 
A-wing with ships which sweep into the bay- 
Like homing birds ; and here with memory 
I dwell alone since my Love sailed away. 

And oft we dream lone memory and I, 

Of ships close-moored on death's dark waveless sea, 

How far and vast those silent waters lie, 

No north, no star, no voyage more to be. 

But bound for some dim islands of the blest, 
Swift-borne upon the wind-waves of the night 
There comes a cloud-ship sailing towards the west, 
With sunset wings wide-spreading in its flight. 

Here in these mortal solitudes of earth 
Now shall I dream of her, no more at rest 
But broken from the anchorage of death, 
And rushing, flying, on an endless quest. 



19 2 



THE PAST. 

Memory, brave and warm and young 
Glides in behind his lonely door, 

Lies down with him, awakes with him, 
Companions him for evermore. 

I MET an aged man low bent 
At twilight o'er an ageless field, 
And watched him with his trembling hands 
Urge the spring earth new life to yield. 

No one was near ; far distant kine 
Wandered amid the lean young trees. 

Silent he toiled like those who know 
The yea and nay of Life's decrees. 

I thought how pitiful, — so old 
Alone and needy ; Life grown dim 

As landscapes when the mists drift down, 
— So must Life's fading seem to him. 

And then I spoke. Some look of mine 
Or some unlocking word I said 

Were magical, for he and I 

All suddenly were with the dead. 



20 



As sudden once again alive, 

And my blind sight saw with his eyes. 
I gazed with him down years long gone 

As one who Time and Death denies. 

I saw the green where crowding shades 
Were dancing by the silver moon, 

And two apart, whose whispered words 
Distilled the sweetness lost so soon. 

And then we looked down green-boughed lanes, 
Down one — mysterious spring-time place — 

Where from a door set wide for love 

There leaned a dreaming spring-time face. 

Then silence fell. The distant kine, 
Far, farther yet were lost to sight 

As thoughts are lost on hills of sleep, 
And day received the veil of night. 



21 



THE SCOFFER. 

FOR you earth lifts, how easily, 
The giant trees upon her breast ! 
And streams, for you, how heedlessly 
Are flowing to their final rest. 

For you the stars move thoughtlessly. 

You question not the set of sun ; 
Night tells you not mysteriously, 

What course those distant worlds have run. 

And once I saw you, carelessly 

Standing beside an open grave. 
Nor turned your strange soul brokenly 

From Life which takes, to Life which gave. 

Yet I shall bide here patiently. 

It may be you will mock no more 
When helplessly, when terribly, 

A heart lies starving at your door. 



22 



ABYSS. 

THIS was her will, her fashioning, 
Over grief's uttermost abyss 
To fling some bravely hiding bloom, 
Upspringing rose of steadfastness. 

We never dreamed warm summer's veil 
Could lie so close to bitter snow, 
Or winter keep the voice of spring. 
But now alas ! we know, we know. 

For death has stripped the generous boughs 
She grew to make the world more fair, 
And in her garden, leafless, bleak, 
The suffering lies gaunt and bare. 



23 



CONFESSION. 

FORGET I am a woman, and your wife. 
For^^et my heart. I will blot out the hours 
When your voice was my world, when down the years 
We leaned and touched, and bridged our separate past. 
I am not what I was. What I shall be 
I know no more than does the twilight pool 
When dying leaves drift down to veil the stars. 
My soul lies like those waters ; quiet, clear, 
All that I am, yearning to shield, to hide 
What you will tell me. * Faithless ', ' cold ', shall fall 
Beyond my sight and yours. No ripple mars 
My listening spirit's tender stillness. Speak ! 

Now all is told. From out my storm-swept deep 
Something I knew not dwelt there rises wild, — 
A mist — a wraith — and flies into the night. 



't^' 



Did you turn after, did you give a cry ? 
Make haste, pursue it, bring me back my Self, 
Capture that fleeting spirit ere too far 
It vanishes within the trackless dark. 

O laggard feet, and slow sin-blinded eyes ! 
A lingering silence falls. The winds die down 
On mournful waters, on a mournful shore 
Dumb and untenanted for evermore. 

24 



TWILIGHT. 

THE hours drift by, morning and noon and night 
In weary flight. 
They are not mine. 

My hour is twilight ; o'er the evening grassj 
Mysteriously it beckons, and I go 
Across dim fields and down the wooded lane 
To keep our tryst again. 

We whisper, whisper, 'neath the sighing trees. 

The listening breeze 

Disturbs us not, 

But hearkens like a wraith within the shade. 

Twilight and I ! — up to the darkening hill 

We wander, with the softly treading wind, 

Long vanished years to find. 

Her House is wrapped in stillness like a shroud. 

We stand grief-bowed, 

We three that mourn. 

Once, once, love met us here, — by paths rose-wound 

Led us to dream by shadow-haunted pool. 

Now trembling breeze knocks, knocks upon her door, 

— Silence for evermore. 



25 



J 

\ 
MYRTLE AND YEW. ! 



THE wind in the churchyard sighing 
The solemn quiet braves, 
And now the trees are murmuring 
Over the voiceless graves. 

Their quickened boughs are bending, 
They murmur " Yea " and " Nay ", 
Dark yew and myrtle whispering 
Above long speechless clay. 



The leaves of grief and laughter, 
Of bridal and of death, 
O what may they be saying 
Upon the wind's faint breath ? 

" The bride smiled when they plucked me 

To lay me on her hair"— 
" And he wept when they gathered 

My leaves for her sad bier." 

" I heard him say ' Forever ', 
And how she answered ' Yeaf' " — 

" I saw him sleep beside her 
When in the ground she lay." 

26 



" Where is Love now, bright myrtle ? " 
*' Nay where O ghostly yew ? " 
" Alas, Death keeps it's secret 
Alike from me and you." 

The wind in the churchyard ceases. 
The trees of Love and Death 
Once more grown dumb, stand guarding 
The dwellers in the earth. 



27 



THE EXILE. 

MY heart from joy was sent 
To endless banishment. 
And now upon an alien shore 
Unceasing tides chant ^^ nevermore.'' 

Never a sail I see 
Nor messenger for me ; — 
I drain the exile's bitter wine 
To Her in loneliness like mine. 



28 



A MARRIED WOMAN. 

For her soul dwells apart, and communes with " Virtue, where it 
inhabits the holy place of gods, and meets not the eyes of mortals visibly." 

EVENING— And I sat knitting by the lamp, 
The others gone to wander on the road 
For it was warm indoors . . . They wanted air, 
And I had been too silent. You leaned close 
Touching the wool that lay upon my knees, 
And looked at me, looked deep into my eyes ; 
So deep, so far, that you surprised my soul 
Before it turned away. I feared you saw . . . 
That all my world of dreams for you lay bare, 
Each path, each thorn ; a shadowy lover's wood 
With trembling trees, mysterious singing leaves . . . 
But some swift veil dropped down, I know not how. 
Before you saw my stripped, unguarded heart 
I had flung on a robe of winter-grey, 
A habit such as nuns wear, wrapped it close 
And turned me towards the dark. Beneath the lamp, 
Still knitting, I sat dumb. Upon my eyes 



29 



I sudden felt a Hand, as when on fields, 
Aflame with day, austerely night comes down, 
Solemn and cool and grave. My sheltered gaze 
Gave time for that grey soul of mine to hide. 

We did not speak. My silence held your thought 

As if a living body in a grave 

Lay starkly cold and still. When your heart stirred 

I pressed it down as with a frozen sod. 

A clock somewhere ticked out its measured time 

While you and I, desire and dreams and death 

Swung round beneath the stars. Perhaps you heard 

My soul's wild crying, though 'twas not to you. 

And how I prayed. I know you must have heard, 

For when at last I folded up my work, 

And stood, and said good-night, from out the grave 

I made for you, you rose — as shall the dead — 

With all the light of two worlds in your face, 

And set me free, and gave me back to God. 



30 



MEMORY AND AUTUMN. 
"That which forgetfulness shall never lay to sleep." 

THE autumn wind from off the hill 
Lays ghostly hand upon my door, 
And lifts the latch to call me forth 
In search of her once more, once more. 

Would I might rest from wandering, 
Or find some other path to tread 
Than hers, some unfamiliar sky, 
Some empty wood untenanted. 

But I must walk remembered ways 
Thick-shadowed by still-echoing leaves, 
And lean against a darkened pane 
Under forever haunted eaves. 

Must gaze where once beneath the moon, 
Her face was graven tremblingly 
Upon deep waters' dreaming night ; — 
Her look that nevermore shall be — 
So pitiless is memory. 



31 



THE WREATH. 1 



'"T^HIS was her room. Upon the dusty shelves 
-L Her books. My faltering hands the pages turn, 
And find her in a faintly pencilled word, 
A phrase her eager spirit set apart 
To guide her down the winding paths of thought 
All starred with dreams, abloom with high desires. 
That was her garden. Clinging rose of faith, 
And sorrow's bitter-sweet, the herb of tears 
And laughter, roots of patience striking deep 
Like groping fingers in the soil of Time. 
Now I have come to make a mourning wreath 
From all of these . . . Against her window, dim 
With absence, autumn-sighing boughs lean down 
And stroke the panes as fingers touch a face . . . 

Ah me ! 

Then suddenly the shadowed room 
Is filled with spring, as if the shimmering May 
Flung fragrant veils on winter and on Death. 
Grey walls are vistas, long and still and sweet. 



32 



Whose twilight green shall never turn to day . . • 
And she is coming, treading on the dew, 
Her hands are weaving love and song of birds 
And day and evening, stars and throbbing sky 
And Beauty. All the darkness of the world 
Resplendent in that magic web of hers. 
The vision fades and falls ... I bow my head, 
And wind my garland while the night comes down. 
With rose of faith, and sorrow's bitter-sweet, 
With roots of patience, and the herb of tears. 



33 



THE MOURNERS. 

ACROSS her lonely grave the wild birds fly 
On drooping wing, the winds with sadder cry 
As if to mourn her rest. 

For never bird did soar so swift, so high 
As she, nor wind outvie her melody, 

Yet God, He knoweth best. 



34 



THE WANDERER. 

"He will not return to me 
But I shall go to him." 

DRAW not his shade within the room. 
No more 
Wish thou for him love's sheltered rest 
Such as he once deemed best ; 
But hushed, without thy midnight door 

One moment share the wanderer's bliss 
With him. 

Upon thy timorous, fireside feet 
Binding the sandals that are meet 
To tread his pathways, vast and dim. 

Then, though thy frail mortality 

Astray 

With one immortal, reckless, — roam 

Too far, and fainting yearn for home, 

For human, unmysterious day, 

Yet strangely shall thy narrow walls 

Retain 

An echo of immensity. 

Thy shell, a-murmur with the sea 

Shall urge thee, drive thee forth again. 

35 D 2 



SCULPTOR OF MEN. j 

"Behold He taheth away . , , who can hinder Him? ... ] 

He sealeth up the stars. ..." j 

I 

SCULPTOR of men, who from Thy throbbing clay , 

Hast wrought the mould of lovers, art Thou then j 

Musing on some surpassing-high design j 

That all yet fashioned Thou must thrust away ? ] 

Hast Thou no yearning wish to lift once more i 

From out Thy ruthless dust, a face 'long veiled 

In death, — lay thrilling fingers on dark eyes 

Which once looked into Thine ? Hast Thou so failed j 

In Thy great art, that not one dream of Thine j 

Hath taken form to move a mortal's heart ] 

As Thou wouldst have it moved ? Ah, I could tell | 

Thee where one lies — in twilight shade, apart, j 

Sheltered by murmuring boughs, green mosses drawn 

From brow to feet, soft-folded for her pall ; j 

Where music of swift waters lulls her sleep, I 

And for her dirge the wild birds* lonely call. • 

O Thou unwitting ! who didst blindly fling 

A magic soul to silence and the dark, , 

Where was Thy vision ? Yea, Thou art like one j 

Who gave the flight — and yet hath broke the wing. j 

'j 
36 



THE TAPESTRY. 

GREAT Toiler, hidden in the night j 

Unresting at Thy ceaseless loom, < 

Winding'^the worlds, unmaking Tyre, j 

Unravelling Egypt ; in their room I 

] 

Spreading'^the fabric of To-day ; | 

I wonder, plying Thy vast trade, ^ 

If Thou wilt choose Time's strongest thread, ] 

Awhile to treasure what was made 1 

Once — once — a love-in-death design — < 

Yea, if that pattern seem to Thee :| 

Unmeet to be obliterate J 

Wilt weave it of Eternity ? j 



f 
37 ! 



SPRING AND WINTER. 

NAUGHT is like spring, 
When the first travail of the drowsy earth 
Stirs the warm pools, and brings green leaves to birth ; 
Child-leaves that ever prattle to the trees 
Of how the breezes played. No storm know these, 
No weary age nor death ; yea spring is best. 

But winter comes, 

And with the ancient healing of her ways 

The broken leaves in quiet graves she lays, 

And o'er the earth a spotless, solemn shroud 

Spreads wide. Then she waits patient, with head bowed, 

Sure they will rise again. Nay, that is best. 



38 



AUTUMN REMEMBERS. ] 

A WILD bird singing upon a bough ... , 

And now, and now i 

Reviving earth lifts up her head. j 

Long, long above her wintered dead \ 

Hath she knelt mourning — and her face j 

Remembers for a space. i 

But dancing in summer's tattered green \ 

All that hath been 1 

She flings away, her grieving star i 

Is set ; and yesteryear, afar, >. 

From some dark marge of tears in vain < 

Calls her to mourn asrain. { 

Now autumn winds chant over the sea j 

What is to be, ' \ 

And with sad fingers weave a shroud. | 

To that eternal dirge, head bowed, j 

Earth listens. Yea, not yet, not yet, j 
Shall her deep heart forget. 



39 



THE SEA GULL. 

HIGH on an upland field 
I found a grey gull's feather, 
Pale blade with which some wing 
Clove wild and stormy weather, 

Cut through the woven air, 
Severed the rain and the wind, 
Parted the blinding cloud 
A homing path to find. 

O brave and eager heart. 

To measure your strength with space, 

To dare immensity 

For love and a resting place ! 



40 



THE EAGLE. 

HIGH on a crag a wounded eagle stands, 
And as the dying mariner craves the sea, 
So o'er his sea — the sky — now gazeth he. 

Looking with dim wild eyes across the world, 
The grandeur of his blood-stained pinions furled 
By death, he dreams of unforgotten lands. 

And once I knew a wounded soul. 

By grief withdrawn from lesser ways of men, 
On spirit-heights he lived, beyond their ken ; 

Silent and far-communing, ever he 
Turned steadfast eyes upon Immensity, 

And faced the one imperishable goal. 



41 



SPRING. 

'T^HE earth is dreaming. Under drowsy snow 
-^ She stirs and whispers in her chilly sleep, 
Murmuring faint snatches of an ancient air, 
Mysterious song that memoried rivers keep. 

She dreams of summer, with its snow of bloom, 
Like life, like death, drop, dropping on her breast — 
Dreams how the Pattern spreads, and then unwinds, 
Spinning, undoing, then a winter's rest 

But that old music, thrilling in the Loom, 

A magic veil on her cold limbs shall fling ; 

She knows and wakes ; swift-fingered in the dark 

She gropes to find the threads that weave the Spring. 



42 



THE TIDE. 

npHE slow tide hears the wind crying from off the j 

-■- shore ; — ! 
Like mother to her child 

Turns, with a crooning song, J 

Lullaby sweet and wild. i 

I 
j 

Over the lonesome sand the ocean draws a fold I 

Of silver, starry, wide, ; 

Embroidered with the moon, 

The mantle of the tide. \ 



43 



THE TWILIGHT BIRD. 

FRAIL, magic loom of sound, whose slender frame 
|jg Hangs high, invisible, in evening tree; 
Flinging a silver thread from shade to shade, 
Dipping in traceries of thrilling song 
To^weave the trembling patterns of a dream, 
Falling and rising, your mysterious spell 
Lifts up my grief ; delivers it from pain 
And soars with it beyond the shining moon. 
Sorrow and music rise into the sky- 
Music and tears within the heart of night ! 



44 



AUTUMN. 

ACROSS hushed evening fields, there drifts a breath 
Of Life ; faint resurrection of the dying earth. 

Up the dark valley, riding on the wind 

Swift travels wintry Death — ^grim, pitiless and blind. 



45 



FLIGHT. 

COME now, lone moon ! upon the marge 
Of night, I wait for thy pale prow 
To glide past promontoried cloud : — 
O take me, mariner, within thy barge. 

Slowly to wind through channelled sky, 
Where hidden islands drop their bloom 
Of stars upon the shadowy flood, 
Wreathing our soundless wake as we drift by. 

Then bear me, onward, unafraid, where wide 
And darker yet, night-waters roll 
Above the deep-drowned world : on, on, 
Outborne upon a nameless, last, tremendous tide. 



46 



THE LILY OF THE NIGHT. 

NOT brighter o'er the fields of Babylon, 
Nor purer on mysterious Eastern hills, 
Blossomed the midnight lily of the sky 
Than now she burns, and pales, and thrills. 

Deep-rooted in that firmamental sea 
Whose purple tide, full-flood for evermore 
Upbears her gleaming chalice, once again 
The fadeless moon blooms by our fading shore. 



47 



THE MOON. 

SLOWLY the frail moon climbs the hill of nighty 

Bowed, white-haired pilgrim of the trackless sky, j 

Whose fiery youth is quenched, whose heart's desire ; 

Is like some wedding garment long laid by. '. 

Around her dance the stars. Blind with their glow i 

They mark not how she passes bent and old, \ 
How piteous that pale breast where ashes lie, 
How tragic eyes once flame, and now grown cold. 

But drop by drop of their essential fire | 

They too shall pay to Time, who silent stands i 

Receiving toll by Nevermore's dark gate ; — j 

Hours, days, and years, and aeons in his hands. \ 



48 



THE FLOWER OF THE MOON. 

I LOOKED within the garden of the sky 
Where leafy clouds o'erbranch the chaliced moon. 
That pallid flower which fades and falls too soon ; 
I looked and mourned her sad fragility. 

But far beyond her, past mortality, 

Deep in the cloudy trellises of night 

I saw the clustering stars, unchanging light, 

Like buds which never bloom and never die. 



49 



THE GHOST STAR. 

THE moon her slow dead veil is sweeping 
Over the restless earth, 
Over dark pain and death, over the throes of birth, 
Binding in icy fold 

Lovers and mourners alike, the young, the old. 
Grief-vigilant, love-sleeping. 

Once, once with Life she too went questing. 

That frozen breast, once green. 

Bears the print of vanished feet, and of what hath been 

In long-past fantasy. 

But lovers and mourners alike no more to be, 

On a heart out-worn lie resting.) 



50 



I 

TILLERS OF NIGHT. I 



TILLERS of Night ! ; 

Ploughing the ancient sky, in fertile shade ! 

Sowing mysterious seed, on what great field 
Of darkness grow the silver grapes that yield 

The rapturous wine of moonlight ? Where was made j 

That magic fire ? In what far vineyard pressed ? j 

We know not when the firmamental spring | 

Returns, or if the night, like earth, must sleep 

■I 

In wintry death ; or if ye plant and reap j 

Immenser Time than ours, or fling 

In one sufficing gesture, endless grain. 

Howe'er it be, when your vast seasons turn 

Forget ye not to drive the hidden share « 

Across the fallow spaces of the air ; 

Stint not the throbbing seed, that there may burn ; 

Once more the radiant bowl of midnight wine. j 



51 E 2 



MYSTERIOUS HARBOUR. 

THE fires are cold, 
The children sleep. Without my door I stand 
Alone, and look at my strange, shuttered house 
Where all the day I hungered for the night. 
Then as a sailor turns him from the land 

I face the Dark... 

Thou knowest me, O Pilot of the sky. 

Thy mariner. My eager sails are set. 

Call thou thy swiftest winds, unveil the stars 

That mark the compass of Immensity. 

Uncharted North ! 

Curving beyond the firmamental sea — 
Mysterious Harbour whence immortal dreams 
Are launched to find a pathway to the world. 
Send me a sign that I may moor in thee. 



52 



My heart's bell strikes... 

I lean above the trackless, fleeting sky. 

Pilot listen ! does a deathless Voice 
Answer ? or is it echo of my heart 
Returning like a lonely, mateless cry ? 

• ••••«•• 

The vision fades... 

1 turn me home. Though tossed upon my shore, 
Yet as the stranded shell sings of the sea, 

So I of those vast tides. I hold, I hide 
The thunders of that silence evermore. 



53 



THE CONQUERED CITY. 

O where beneath the shrouded moon 
Are all the dwellers of the town ? 
For now from broken roof and wall, 
Grey Horror's face is leaning down 

And gazing at the silent street, 
While up and down the empty stair 
With furtive tread and stealthy hands, 
There starts and glides the thief Despair. 

His arms are hung with Love and Peace, 
Now torn in shreds that drip with red, 
And hugged against his frozen breast 
Are Dreams, plucked from the helpless dead. 

Through halls dark-tapestried with death. 
He whispers " Faith ! come play with me. 
Against your prayers and fire and flame 
I pit my spoils triumphantly. 



54 



" Naught you desired, naught you made 
Shall keep you from a beggar's plight, 
With all your saints, your martyred Christ 
You shall not win from me to-night ! " 

For destinies of Heaven and Hell — 
O God ! — Despair and Faith at play 
Now bend across the heavy board 
Where piled beneath the moon's dull ray 

There lie the living and the dead, 
What once hath been and what shall be. 
And there they sit and cast the dice 
To win or lose eternally. 



55 



WAR SONG OF THE WOMEN. 

DEATH ! thou who takest double toll 
Of living hearts and dying men, 
(O graves in which our hearts went down 
Never in joy to rise again), 

Hark to the song we sing to thee — . 
Grey women who are left behind. 
Bereft of all we treasured most ; 
Destroyer pitiless and blind ! 

You hushed my lover's voice for mey 
And froze the breast whereon my head 
Once found warm shelter from the world. 
You laid my heart beside the dead. 

And did you think your task was done ? 
That lover s speech for evermore 
Was silenced^ that our stricken souls 
Were dumb beneath the load they bore ? 



56 



Dark Death I and if thy reddened hands 
Outstretched for more, and more again. 
Should take our uttermost and best. 
Grim Slayer, yet they are not slain. 

For we, grey mourners who are left, 
Now serve and love and strive and yearn 
As never women did before. 
And from their dust such ardours hum 

As never flamed within this world. 
Yea, we whose joy died with our dead, 
We, stern-baptised in bitter seas. 
Beyond the shores of anguish led 

By thy dread hand, our eyes have seen 
A , vision only grief -purged sight 
Can look upon. We thank thee, Death, 
For deathless love and quenchless light ! 



57 



THE WAR WIDOW. 

"She forbade not their departure, for she had thoughts worthy 
of a bride of Zeus." 

I SENT my Love to serve a deeper heart 
Than mine ; from me henceforth to dwell apart 
Taking the stricken world to be his bride. 
He might not have another Love beside. 

Across my solitary midnight sky 
Horror, a-flame, went soaring, rushing by. 
But wilder, higher yet than mortal fires 
I heard the prayer, the cry of brave desires. 

Now in my dreams I see a starlit plain 
Whence he I loved and lost comes not again, 
But in his Bride's dark mantle lies at rest, 
His soul a burning jewel on her breast. 



58 



THE SECOND CALVARY. 

THE lonely Figure on the solemn height, 
His grave eyes darkened with an ancient pain, 
Across the ages' shrouding veil of years 
Now gazes once again. 

For far below Him gliding soundlessly, 
There moves a waveless ghastly sea of red. 
And ruined hills give forth a horror-cry. 
His sorrowing stricken head 

Hangs lower, fainter still upon His breast. 
He whispers, *' Lord, not vinegar and gall 
They offer now, but from War's vine3^ard pressed 
The bitterest Cup of all. 

*• Yet Father, not my will but Thine be done." 
But as He, shuddering, tastes the blood-bright wine 
There comes a far-off answer through the night : 

" This is Man's will — not Mine." 



59 



OUT OF THE DUST. 

SO bitter think you was their morning death- 
Life, love, high faith but just begun, 
Bitter to lay these down, and enter in 
To darkened ways before their noon was run ? 

Sweeter perchance, they find tremendous night 
Than this our empty narrow day, — 
Music of anguish grander to the heart 
Than village tune to pipe a soul away. 

Brave Clarion ! wild reed within the dark, 
Over the muffled drums of pain 
Rising triumphant to the listening stars, — 
O fire our coward hearts to live again ! 



60 



SPRING. 

THE night is filled with spring, with fragrant airs 
That bow the eager grasses to their earth 
Witness of life and death. They rise, they bend, 
Do homage to the sod that gave them birth, 

And then draw blade to prick the evening sky. 
Down by the marsh wild twilight -voices call 
To pierce the dark that shrouds them, mate finds mate 
By each faint ray of music, each love-cry. 

Yet soon they sleep ; too soon shall autumn's cold 
Quench their brief song, and all the frozen wood 
Be silent, all too soon the leaping grass 
Must sheathe its green within the blackened mould. 

O Love, the hidden sea that yearly lifts 
This throbbing wave of spring, on its wide breast 
Upbears thy heart, and mine, — its moving tide 
Slow swings us, too, towards winter's lonely rest. 



6i 



WINTER. 

A WORLD benumbed. The wild, melodious rill 
Has lost its cadence. From the stricken trees 
No leafy music more, all black and bare 
They spread mute branches in the cruel breeze. 

Close-fettered in the viewless ice of death 
More silent still and cold, the soldiers sleep, 
All quiet now ; no warmth, no voice, no love, 
Where field and stream and heart their secret keep. 

Yet I have seen the miracle of spring, 
Heard wakened voices, prisoned woods set free, 
— Mysterious still twixt veils of silence rent — 
And paradise that was, again may be. 

Thou shalt return, wild music of the hills ! 
And thou so dumb this many a wintered year, 
Shall speak again, and take me by the hand 
To lead me forth beyond dark death, and fear 

To some eternal meadow in the sun, 
Where all the magic of the world shall sing. 
Then we shall rest and pray; shall understand... 
Yea, I await that miracle of spring. 

62 



THE WILD HUNTSMEN. 

THROUGH wooded copse and upland glade 
The wild hares run, the wild birds fly. 
Dark thickets gleam with curious eyes 
To watch the armies thunder by. 

Whence are these hunters ? What the game ? 
No dogs are loosed to scent this prey, 
Quick woodland ears are shuddering 
To hear the cries of Men at bay. 

For they who once slew w^oodland kin 
Are fighting on a scarlet plain. 
No more the dwellers of the wood 
Are hunted — only men lie slain. 

Aghast they watch the huntsmen come, 
The steeds, the guns with flaming breath, 
From east and west like gathering seas 
To meet and break in waves of death. 

While mid the thunder and the dust, 
The frenzied hoofs, the mortal cry, 
As if they fixed their Quarry still 
The dead men stare into the sky. 

And now upon the poisoned wind 
Spectral, and grim, exultingly. 
The timid hares, the trembling bird 
See red-eyed Hate swift-rushing by. 

63 



DESPAIR. 

i 

WE dreamed beside the warm hearthstone \ 

My Love and I. And in the flame 
We saw a world without an end, ! 

We read the book that has no name. j 

1 

But up the silent garden path j 

And through the trees (so still before) i 

With storm and wild winds following, ■! 

War laid red fingers on our door. \ 

He struck the door and shook the latch : I 
*' From hearth and home come out to me, 

And she shall have another Love ' 

Her faithful mate to be." j 

Love left me by an ebbing flame. I 

And many a night in dark and cold ! 

I sit beside the grey hearthstone 1 

And think what never may be told. 1 



Lo ! stealthy like the gliding dusk 
And quiet like the gathering night, 
A presence stands beside my gate 
And murmurs of true love's deligl 



delight. 
64 



I listen. Round my trembling heart 
Grief wraps a shroud of living death, 
And fear lays icy hands on me 
And ties my feet and stops my breath. 

* Red war that called thy Love from thee 
Hath sent me : — now come night, come day 
Alone I will thy true Love he 
Whom naught shall reave away.'" 

O Christ ! T'was Horror crossed the sill 
And clasped me to his frozen breast. 
He whispers by my black hearthstone 
And will not let me rest. 

He tells a tale, and o'er and o'er 
He tells it me. Dead men that rot 
Upon a field, with sightless eyes 
That looked for home and found it not. 

And when the dark winds moaning go 
He tells me, " So men dyings cry 
Into the night which answers not. 
Into a blind and silent sky.'^ 

Though I would sleep as widows sleep 
Yet Horror lies abed with me, 
And hugs and whispers through the night, 
And will not let me be. 

65 



** Beneath the moonlight is his bed 
Who shall with thee lie nevevmove^ 
A nd colder than the moon he lies 
Who wavmed thee on his heart before.'' 

Then Horror got me with a babe 
And mocking, christened it Despair. 
O now I lift it to my breast, 
And hungrily I press it there 

At peace beside my dead hearthstone ;- 
For now I know ere dawns the day 
The child that Horror gave to me 
Will surely drain my life away. 



66 



THE UNBURIED DEAD. | 

NO requiem is theirs, no shade ^ 
Of solemn dome, nor peaceful prayer 
Taking its flight on wings of incensed air. 

No sheltered grief mourns these, nor hath man made j 

( 

The storm -hung bier whereon they sleep. \ 

Yet not unwatched they lie ; I 

The steadfast moon, pale ghost-star of the sky, i 

Night's acolyte, doth heaven's Altar keep. | 

5 

And choired winds a litany i 

Shall chant, antiphonal and low, i 

August refrains no mortal man may know, i 

Out-lasting love, and grief and memory. ] 



67 F 2 



BELGIUM. 

CORN once spread promise on the hills 
All gemmed with poppies' living glow, 
And setting sun lit fires of peace, — 
How long, O God ! how long ago. 

Now poppies in deserted fields 
Are like red wounds in dying men. 
To eyes tear-blind each setting sun 
Lights flaming pyres of death again. 



68 



THE RIVER OF DEATH. 

HOW crowded is thy brink, River of Death ! 
In solemn state, and one by one no more 
The shades await thy ferryman, with slow 
And quiet tread to go, 
When his dark prow touches the living shore. 

Now horror-hunted, blinded with red tears, 
In shuddering herds they cry upon the shore ; 
** Boatman^ swift return I Bear us away 
Where is nor dawn nor day 
Only oblivious night for evermore ! " 

Unearthly tide ! will peace return to thee, 
And patient shades embark on thee once more, 
Who loving life, yet since thou will'st it so, 
Mutely obedient go ? 
Nay, wilder and more anguished teems thy shore ! 



69 



THE VINEYARD. 
1914 — 191 — 

THAT will be rare and precious wine 
O God ! when all the grapes of pain 
Are pressed, when from the heart's red vine 
The fruit is torn again — again — 

When nevermore a quiet spring 
Leads summer on the hills of peace, 
And nevermore Thy Fingers cease 
To reave our vineyards, or to fling 

The dark and heavy-clustered grief 
In that unfathomed Press of Thine. 
Not light Thy revels, Lord, nor brief 
Must Heaven's banquet be, when wine 

Is from such solemn vineyards drawn, 
Whose roots lie woven round the dead. 
Yea, fill Thy Cup with anguish red 
From morn till night, from night till morn 

We question not, nor grudge. But yet 
We ask one guerdon. Lord. At least 
Forget us not. Do not forget 
What fills the Chalice at Thy Feast. 

70 



DARKENED. j 

THE cottages are lone and cold. ,; 

For up and down the village street j 

The stricken women move and talk ] 

In whispers, as if ghosts did meet. i 

1 

** Three days ago it was," one said, ] 

" The babe which leaps beneath my breast j 

Will never hear his father's voice ! 

Nor know what earth took him to rest." ; 

And one with head tear-bowed and grey v 

Wept as only the old can weep, j 

I 
Whose fires once warm in ashes lie, 

I 

Whose child not love, but death, doth keep. j 

\ 

Now cottages are dark and still. j 
Behind each- silent grief -barred door, 

The women lie alone, and dream ] 

Of those who shall return no more. j 

Above the night-black roofs, the moon \ 

Swings a slow censer in the sky, I 

And moon-white clouds go drifting up i 

From Time, into Eternity. 

1 
71 



THE ENDLESS ARMY. 

And the fathers of the children go out to that Endless Army, and come 

not again. 

WITH folded hands beside the fire 
Silent she muses. Scarlet flames 
Leap from the ashes, then like bloom 
Of briefest hour, faint and fade, 
While secret, darker, grows the room. 

• • • • • 

Dream-shielded from the changeful world 

Upstairs the children lie asleep. 

The gliding moonlight enters in. 

Unearthly, reminiscent, still. 

And touches sleeping brow and chin — 

With magic art of light and shade 
A strangeness carves upon their youth. 
The moonbeams, lighter than a breath 
Dream-stirred, have sculptured deep and pale 
A less than life, a more than death. 



7» 



Yet not alone the moonlight there, 
For she who watched the ebbing fire 
Leans breathlessly above the bed . . , 
Her yearning eyes explore each face 
To find once more her blessed dead. 

The reverent moonlight lays a veil 
On hair grown silver 'neath her ray 
And waits . . . Outside, the moaning trees 
Are hung like harps in branching night, 
Swept by the fingers of the breeze. 

The wind, the Moon, and Memory . . . 
Slow tears, and grief, and Life and Death 
'Mid that great company, asleep 
The children lie in marble peace. 
Unknowing who the vigil keep. 

And always down the quiet road 
A soundless tramp of ghostly feet . . . 
Remembered, half-dreamt battle cry . . . 
While past the house, beneath the trees 
Dim regiments of shades march by. 



73 



SISTERS. 
To M. A. C. 

1914— 

THERE is a space between us, deep and wide, 
The years when you were there, and I was here. 
No words can bridge them, nor the touch of hands, 
Nor straining breast to breast, nor prayer, nor tears, 
Nor groping heart, nor yearning soul's desire. 
Nay, each of us is twain ; the comrade self 
Which through our years of youth shared all the world, 
— And now this Stranger. You and I were strange 
Through four long years. I did not share your sleep, 
Nor ever morning bloomed across the sky 
For us together . . . While you dreamed I watched, 
When I lay down to rest, your day began. 
Your labouring climb up all the hills of grief. 
I knew you walked there, for my lonely feet 
Trod that same path, but never by your side. 
I called, you answered, half the world between. 

O brave and blessed ! now we are met at last. 

74 



Beneath the lamp, beside your quiet fire 
We talk and laugh, and weep for what has been ; 
And wonder if God knows all that we gave 
When for the hidden purpose of His world 
He made us strangers for a bitter space . . . 
Made our love dumb and blind. O let us dream 
That far beyond this world, in some still place 
Those years of ours shall meet, lay hour on hour 
And pain on lonely pain . . . Then growing one, 
An undivided living stream of Time, 
Shall thrill within our minds, leap in our hearts, — 
All mine be yours, all yours forever mine. 



75 



"SHE WILLED THAT HE SHOULD 
FORGET ALL ELSE." 

"Si tihi opus est meo laborc non recuso laborem," 

" T TE fell bravely fighting to the last." 
-■- -L She remembers the sudden phrase 
Read by this quiet lamplight, 
With the dying west ablaze. 

Now forever her soul walks the fields 
Where he sleeps, lifting each solemn head 
To gaze, — then a reverent veil 
Laying over another's dead. 

Not there, not there. Ghostly miles 
She treads, past the silent slain 
W^ho answer not, will not tell 
Where she may behold again 

The face forever desired. 
Midnight now — the lamp burns dim, 
Midnight — yet once more, once more 
She wanders in search of him, 

Once more through the death-dumb fields. 
Only for guide as she goes 
This — he will lie turned from home 
From her — this her sure heart knows. 

76 



THE CHALICE. 

GREAT Priest I cannot see Thee as Thou art. 
Though Thy deep voice across the solemn night 
Chants the vast litany of life and death, 
Yet is the altar hidden from my sight. 

Hast Thou a quenchless taper in the dark ? 
Some loving acolyte to lift for Thee' 
A censered heart ? or art Thou all alone, 
Requiring naught from brief mortality ? 

I will not question more. Thy ritual 
I may not know. Yet if to Thee seem good 
To fill Thy cup, break sacrificial bread. 
May they be mine, my body and my blood. 



77 



HUNGER. 

THEY thought because I turned away 
From feasting, and the rose-bright glass 
That I, (more starved than all the rest, 
With thirst afire in my breast) 
Had lesser need than they, alas ! 

But never had there been for me, 
Beside that board an empty place, 
Whence I could see great waters lie 
Draining the moonlight from the sky, 
Or setting stars adrift in space. 

Unfed I left their crowded room. 
And silently, without the door 
Received the night ; — at last, at last 
Infinity to break my fast, 
A reveller for evermore. 



78 



THE ONE. 

" npHE circle of the Universe is One " 

J- — And yet within Eternity's huge curve, 
Broken in magic, shimmering whirls of Time, 
Lie spring and autumn, song of evening bird. 
Brief coils of Beauty flung into the Vast 
The blazing splendour of the dying west. 
Night's glittering hoard, stars slowly one by one 
Withdrawn before the covetous eye of day ; 
The questing moon, with palely spreading sail 
Exploring endless caverns of the dark ; 
Dream-weaving pines within a lonesome wood 
Dipping their netted branches in the sky, 
White blossoms on a pool, — a leaning bough 
Thrilling with twilight melody . . . Ah me ! . . . 

When I have left this changeful-seasoned earth 
Let me once pause and turn. Let me look down 
Where far below still glides a springtime moon. 
Some wild breast's cadence, some remembered air. 
Or fragrance from a dawn-discovered rose 
Perchance may rise, may give me heart once more 
To climb alone the changeless heights of God. 



79 



THE LIVING VOICE. 

IN the dark I heard one playing 
A viol, strange and wild, 
Methought wise age was stirring 
The strings ; nay, 'twas a child. 

We know not what we are saying, 
Neither the young nor the old. 
The mother in her grieving 
Knows not what she hath told. 

The rapturous lark up-soaring 
Or brooding on her nest. 
Is in her song out-pouring 
What she hath never guessed. 

And when o'er the moors are flying 
The curlews, swift and high, 
They reck not in their crying 
How Life gives forth a cry. 

So may Love beside the dying, 
Hear in that ebbing breath 
A living voice, denying 
Loneliness and Death. 



80 



FIRESIDE. j 

I SIT with my old friend by the fire. ■[ 

We heap the scarlet coals, and speak of days i 

Cherished and gone, . . . one fragrant spring we knew ' 

When bloom lay thick as snow upon the fields. | 

And then we pause ; late-autumn boughs lean down j 

And tap with musing fingers on the pane ... if 

But I who talk and listen, where am I ? j 

J 

Searching the hollow valleys of the night, | 

The bonds of this tight-clinging flesh of mine 

Half-loosened like a mantle, from my eyes i 



The body's hood thrown back, my half-freed soul 
Yearning to fling its heavy cloak to Death, 
And unencumbered plunge among the stars. 
O voyage through the labyrinths of Space, 
Borne like a thought down cataracts of Time 
To worlds where Time is not — to some far shore 
Beyond horizons charted in our dreams ; 
On, on, as if a barge should spread aloft 
A fiery heart for sail, — a heart's desire, 
Wild, urgent, like a cry within the wind. 

8x 



G 



Red embers fall. And now my friend and I 
Draw closer yet beside the ebbing flame. 
I hear his voice again, see lanes we knew 
With hawthorn all adrift. But o'er my eyes 
The folds descend ; struggling, reluctant, I 
Who stood just now mid pathways of the stars. 
Am caught and bound in my mortality. 
I listen, smile, and watch the dying fire 
Rebellious, once more captive, ijn the dark. 



82 



A VISION OF A CITY. 

I SAW in troubled sleep, 
A dark-browed, fearful shape : about her face 
Hung horror like a hood. There was no trace 
Of love or pity in her tearless eyes, 
Whose lids drooped low as clouds in stormy skies, 
But shadowy babes groped vainly for her breast, 
Wailing unfed, unsheltered, uncaressed. 
And in my dream came drifting to her knees 
Gaunt famished ghosts, like leaves from dying trees; 
Faster they came, huddled to starve and die 
By her, whose loveless, awful eyes were dry. 

• ••••• 

Long years have passed, yet still that face I see, 
Haunting my sleep ; and still I cry to Thee 
O God, teach her to weep ! 



83 G 2 



WHEN I MUST DIE. 

WHEN I must die, yea though t'were summer's height, 
Yet all the world for me shall lie like snow 
In some untrodden north, and I below 
Great drifts of death, shall mark not day from night. 
Life, must this be ? Will never moon lie bright 
On fields again, will flying seasons go 
And come yet I sleep too benumbed to know? 
Must I lose wings with beauty still in flight ? 

Not this my end. O miracle of spring ! 

Grope in the frozen sod to find my heart ; 

With netted roots lift up my heavy head ; 

Send me wild April dreams, around me fling 

The bloom of May. Then teach me your great art 

With Death, that Death may know I am not dead. 



84 



THE FOREST POOL. 

WITHIN a trackless wood there lies a pool 
Whose slumbering waters, motionless and deep, 
Of stars and moon the solemn secret keep. 

But o'er the pool there leans an aged man, 
Who on that mirror, traced by evening's breath, 
Perchance the secret reads of Grief and Death. 



85 



FEAR OF DEATH. 

NOW he has laid his dust aside 
And folded up his clay. 
Has flung apart vast doors of death 
And left our narrow day. 

But I who still wear cloak of flesh 
The huddled robes of earth, 
Aghast before his homelessness, 
The starkness of his birth, 

Draw closer yet my living shroud, 
And pray God for the key 
To lock the selfsame gates he passed 
Who owns Infinity. 



86 



DEATH AND LIFE. 

"Holding his hand before his face to screen his eyes as if some dread sight had 
been seen, and such as none might endure to behold. And then, after a short 
space, we saw him salute the earth and the home of the gods above, both at once, 
in one prayer " 

WHAT voice shall sing of thee dim-veiled Death 
Whose shrouded eyes behold us — we not Thee ? 
Lone master of the high vineyarded hill, 
On cloud-wrapped terrace slowly down and down 
Pressing the grapes for sacramental wine. 
Not ours to drink, nor thine. 

Grey wanderer up the tangled slope of age, 
Stooping now here, now there, for thy dark wreath 
To pluck some fragile solitary bloom 
Whose love-reft petals met thee on the wind. 
Dread gardener of the separate midnight hour 
For bud not yet a flower 

Who reachest — choosing with a cold strange hand 
The dawning rose to wind with evening yew, 
(Too soon, too soon for them that sowed fair seed). 
Yet gatherest so slow the asphodel 
For hands outstretched upon a tortured shore. 
Yearning to wait no more ! 

87 



Swift on the sea are thy undaunted feet 

O Death. To choired thunders' wild lament 

Thou droppest men like leaves within the deep ; 

Falling in soundless, dark, autumnal flight 

On that unearthly forest-floor to lie, 

While storm and thou sweep by. 

Most bitter Death art thou, when lover's phrase 
Thou'lt have unsaid ; the word tha^ love forgot 
When leaping hope rode high within the breast 
Not dreaming of a wound. Thou woundest now 
O Darkness ! with uplifted cypress bough 
Ordaining silence . . . Now, on woe on weal 
Inexorable Seal ! 

Tiller of souls ! across Immensity 
Who drivest thy deep hlade^ in riven hearts 
Thou findest promise of full harvesting ; 
Yea, Husbandman of hare grief -ruined fields , 
In thy dark furrow , sorrow's dying grain 
For thee shall rise again. 

Within that wilderness thou com'st to me 
Great vision, — mid the after-world and this 
O Mystery, I see thee as thou art. 
Renunciation's solemn bays close-bound 
Upon thy death-anointed, deathless hroiv 
Life ! I behold Thee now, 

8S 



THE SOWER. 

BENEATH the quiet sky 
A sower casts his seed upon the hill, 
Where sleeping seed will wake 
Obedient to the spring's awakening will. 

How strangely from Thy Hand 

Across the darker fields of death and grief 

Men's souls, like seed, are flung ; 

But will that harvest, Lord, like earth's be brief ? 

Or to deep-furrowed Death 

Dost Thou consign only immortal grain ? 

— Lay down in lonely Grief 

Enduring hearts that deathless rise again ? 



89 



"THE EARTH SHALL SILENCE MUSIC — '* 

FULL soon, too soon, the silent earth shall hide 
All music in her quiet ; fold on fold 
Shall muffle pain, reiterant and deep, 
And love's wild flutes be dumb within the mould. 

Perchance the muted choirs of the world 
One day will rise, — earth's mortal stillness break 
With paeans grander than the strains of Time, 
And death will sleep — sleep — nevermore to wake. 



90 



LIFE. 

LIFE, clad like a needy beggar, 
Came knocking at my gate. 
" Give me your lass and lad," he said, 
" Before it be too late." 

"Nay ragged man, pray tell me 
Where shall their shelter be. 
And who will tend them ill or well 
If they go forth with thee ? " 

" No shelter and no tending 
Shall they have, or well or ill. 
With me is wildness on the sea 
And hunger on the hill. 

" My nights are bleak and lonely, 
And sorrowful my day, — 
All those who take the road with me 
From ease must turn away." 

And then I looked upon him. 
On Life in beggar's guise, 

would that I might ever tell 
What lay in his deep eyes. 

1 gave him youth and maiden. 
With Life they left my door. 

I am content though my heart knows 
They will return no more. 

91 



THE RESURRECTION. 

HE had one dream by night and day, 
To saddle a horse and ride away 
** To see Christ's tomb," he said. 

At last with scrip and horse and sword 
— To kith and kin with never a word — 
He rode while dawn was red. 

He rode athirst and starved, but found 
The Holy Place on holy ground 
And knelt with love and dread. 

Full many a year he worshipped well. 
And then to us as a dark night fell 
Returned with whitened head. 

We gave him meat, we filled his bowl, 
But a look — the look of a sorrowing soul- 
On his white face we read. 



92 



** I'll tell you of Christ's dying place," 
— And then all silent for a space, 
Full sore he wept instead. 

*' O many a bitter tear I weep, 
'Tis in my heart Christ's grave is deep, 
Where I have sinned, He bled. 

" Yet even in me, of all His least, 
He promised — in the sacred East — 
To rise again " — he said. 



93 



THE OLD PEASANT. 

ALONE beside her spinning wheel 
Her aged fingers tireless 'draw 
The thread, though on the blackened hearth 
The ebbing fire glows no more, 

And though the table with its fare 
For one, has scarce enough to feed 
The birds that peck upon the sill, 
And there is none to know her need. 

At dusk I stood within her door 
And saw her rags, the chilly room. 
And how she plied the ceaseless wheel 
And whispered in the gathering gloom. 

*' O God," she said, ** All this I spin 
Is some fine altar cloth begun. 
And garment for the priest to wear 
When we receive Thy Blessed Son." 



94 



'Twas thus she mumbled to herself 
And lower bent, and shook her head 
At every knot within the wool, 
Or thinning in the sacred thread. 

Her fingers moved as eagerly 
As were she young, not poor and old, 
And making her a bridal-dress, 
Of cloth of silver, cloth of gold. 

And now beneath a lonely sod 
Long since she sleeps upon the hill ; 
— God grant, that in her homespun shroud 
She dreams of blessed vestments still. 



95 



THE GARDEN. 



A MAN there was, of simple kind, 
Who to the Lord gave all his mind» 

For naught he cared, naught craved he, 
Save his Lord's servant for to be, 

And e'en his garden plot kept fair 
Because, he said, the Lord walked there. 

Of this his friends made many a jest 
Yet he toiled on with heart at rest. 

The years went by. His head grown gray, 
Still he believed Christ passed that way. 

Then came a time when he was left 
Of loving wife and child bereft. 

" He will doubt now," the scoffers said, 
" When wife and child and love are dead." 

But all their words he heeded not, 
And tended still the garden plot. 



96 



At last himself lay at death's door, 
To love, believe and v^rork no more. 

His pitying friends stood by his bed, 
And this is what to them he said : 

*' O bury me not in a church-yard mound 
But lay me in my garden ground ; 

** From loving dust it needs must be 
That flowers will spring more fair to see, 

" And Christ will know, in my last sleep, 
For Him I still the garden keep." 



97 H 



THE ARTISAN. 

I KNEW a man of humble mien — 
Poor artisan, who to his cell 
Carried the fragments of the world, 
To mend them lovingly and well. 

He took the burning shards of sin, 
The tattered rags of old desire, 
And statues torn from blessed shrines 
Where once men kept an Altar fire. 

I saw him lift a broken stone 
Half wings, half horror, — ruined eyes . 
And gaze as one looks on the dead, 
Sublimely as who death denies. 

And then he turned him to the west 
Where sunset glowed beyond the trees, 
And made obeisance, like to one 
Who understands Life's deep decrees. 



98 



The sky grew dark. Yet I could see 
Him drain the heart's blood from his breast 
Pouring it on that shattered stone ... 
At last he laid him down to rest. 

Then I beheld no mortal thing, 
For now the statue, wings unfurled, 
Blazed like an angel in the room 
Filled with the secret of the world. 

But in the shadow, on the ground, 
There lay the body of a man ; — 
As embers lie where once was flame 
So lay the humble artisan. 

Then as I stood in heart of night, 
All silently, all silently 
The moon rose, spreading o'er his face 
A shroud of white Eternity. 



99 H 2 



THE MOUNTAIN. 

"And the chief things of the ancient mountains 
And the precious things of the lasting hills." 



D 



^ARK, solitary, still, 

A mountain crag lifts silence into night. 
The wind's capricious will 
Concerns it not, nor season's restless flight. 
Not spring nor winter, life nor death. 

Yet in that changeless heart 

Perchance some secret lies forever hid, 

Mysterious, apart ; 

Some prophecy which coward worlds forbid, 

And cover with a changeful earth. 



100 



DEEP WATERS. 

**Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters : the east wind hath broken 
thee in the heart of the seas. And I shall bring up the deep upon thee and the 
great waters shall cover thee." 

GRIEF led me down upon a lonely strand 
Whose silence hemmed a lonelier, darker sea. 
Far, far behind me lay the dreaming land 
Of what no more shall be. 

And there I laid my will upon the shore 
And my defenceless heart I gave to Thee, 
Bereft of all that sheltered it before 
From this Thy mystery. 

O Life ! if Thou canst hear me, where I cry 
From Thy deep waters, Thy unfathomed sea, 
Thou knowest now no wish, no questions, lie 
Between Thy Will and me. 



lOI 



PEACE. 

TURN, turn, wide sea of Peace 
And flood the shore . . . 
Drown thou all yesterdays, and hide 
My soul for evermore. ' 

Cleanse, lave me, sea of Peace, 
And may no tide 

Recall thee, may no winds disturb 
The depth where I would bide. 

Lull, heal me, sea of Peace ; 
My listening heart 
Slow, slowly sinking down in thee, 
Far from the world, apart, 

The music of thy wave 

Like some faint bell 

Repeats : — then rests in thy deep bed 

As lies the murmuring shell. 



102 



THE GRAIL. 

^* T^EARLESS of peril, solitude and pain, 
-i- To seek Thy Grail I leave the ways of men. 
Oh Uttermost and Perfect ! Shining Star ! 
Lead Thou my feet there where Thy mysteries are."" 

*Twas thus I prayed, on this high errand bent 
In pilgrim's garb forth from the city went, 
While farther and more faint the voices grew, 
Of love and friends and all the joys I knew. 

Long are the roads that only pilgrims tread, 
Those paths no shelter give, no well, no bread. 
Lonely the nights, starved and athirst the days, 
While the blest vision evermore delays. 

Yet even as birds are by a wind upborne. 
So driven by heart's desire, midnight and morn 
Found me upon the mountains still, in lands 
With hope alone for guide, — on eastern sands 

Whose golden waters, soundless wave on wave, 
Horizon's swift receding footsteps lave ; 
Where endless shores vestments of silence wear. 
And the lone spirit craves no speech save prayer. 



103 



Yet all my offering of weary years, 
Of youth and sheltering love, of bitter tears 
And steadfast quest, found me unworthy still ; 
The Grail held from my sight, hid in His Will. 

At last I turned me home. With cloak grief-rent, 
Unworthy pilgrim, stricken, old, and spent, 
Christ's sinful wanderer, — one evening late 
As beggars pass, I passed the city gate. 

Now darkness deepened ; and the city's roar 
Ebbed like a tide. The leprous, crowding poor, 
Vanished in gloom, and like a sea-swept stone 
Left high upon the shore, so I was left, alone. 

Then in the silence, up the empty street 
I saw a Shadow move ; not slow, nor fleet. 
But as a cloud drifts up the endless sky, 
O Love, O Christ ! that Shadow came to me, 

And grave unfathomable eyes looked into mine 

So long tear-blind. " Give Me that pilgrim cup of thine,'* 

He said ; and stooping o'er the city street 

Some dust He gathered, trod by sinners' feet ; — 

** O man ! My Heart bleeds here." — And then a veil 
Fell on my sight, but in my hands I held the Grail. 



104 



QUESTION. 

OTHOU that cravest shelter, 
My bread and wine to share, 
Wilt thou take, at My' table, 
Unquestioning — My fare ? 

When My feast lies before thee 
And when no other guest 
Shall share thy bread of solitude — 
Will this to thee seem best ? 

And though from bitter vineyards 
Is drawn My lonely wine, 
Man, may I fill thy trembling cup 
Full to the brim, — like Mine ? 



105 



■" / 

A 



THE DEATHLESS VOICE. 

T WANDERED through a solemn evening glade 
-*• Whose branches wove deep solitudes apart, 
And swaying, murmured : ^^ Long delayed 
Hath been thy shriving, rebellious heart." 

Beneath the arches of leaf-cloistered shade 
I knelt to hear the services of night, 

When flaming sunset altars fade, 

And tapered stars shed distant, graver light. 

Immensity was with me as I prayed, 
And now as if for sacrament, at dawn, 

A song — unearthly, unafraid, — 

Of nightingale with breast upon a thorn. 



1 06 



WILT THOU SUP WITH ME? 

" Abscondit lucem in manibus." 

" TV/fAN, wilt thou sup with Me? " 

lyi- " I thirst and hunger, Lord," I said, 
" For living water, for the living bread, 
And all my days for this 
Have prayed — in bliss 

To rest alone with Thee." 

" Nay, wait ; we shall be Three." 

I looked, and lo ! there Sorrow stood 
With deathless eyes beneath her solemn hood — 

** Yea blessed Lord," I said. 
And bowed my head, 

" Thy will— so let it be." 



107 



THE HIDING PLACE. 

OLORD ! where is Thy hiding place ? 
Forever, night and day, 
Through ageing years I wander down Life's way 
To find Thy Face. 

Swift-Receding ! shall I leave 
All I possess for Thee ? 

Thou hast my youth ; must love, too, no more be ? 
Wilt Thou bereave 

Thy pilgrim of all else but Thee ? 
Now, standing by love's grave 

1 hear Thy answer Lord ; all that I gave 
So eagerly 

Found wanting still, naught could suffice 

But this. Yet I fulfil 
All that Thou askest Lord, — I do Thy will, 

I pay Thy price. 



io8 



INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEL 

OGOD, art Thou Master of Life 
Yet still hast hidden in Thy heart, 
Apart, 
The meaning of grief and strife ? 

Art Thou Master of our desires ? 

I cannot think Thou know'st men old 

And cold, 

When Thou withholdest Thy fires. 

This I know ; — Thou art Master of me, 
For, beaten, alone, blind with pain, 
Once again 
I grope in the darkness for Thee. 



109 



SILENCE. 

" If a woman . . . vow a vow unto the Lord . . . then all her 
vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul 
shall stand." 

LORD ! Now that I behold Thee face to face 
And death hath burned the body's mist away 
I offer Thee a gift, which through long years 
I treasured for Thee. Nay, it is. not tears, 

Nor sacrifice, nor bitter solitude, 
Nor doubt, nor grief, nor rebel heart's desire ; 
None, none of these. It is a gem, a flame, 
And writ upon it, in my blood. Thy Name. 

Do Thou look well — it is a throbbing fire — 
Or shall I tell Thee ? It is only this. 
My silence. Once, once from a lover's wood 
A magic whisper called me, and I stood 

Listening like those who, stifled 'neath the earth 
Might feel the sod lift, yet should give no sign, 
But press upon their lips a seal. Yea, I 
Was silent then — I veiled my face — passed by. 

Take it O Strange and Stern ! this gem, this fire, 
Unfolded from the covering of the years 
Where it lay safe for Thee. And I will rest, 
While Thou dost wear my silence on Thy Breast. 

no 



THE PRISON-HOUSE OF GRIEF. ; 

A REBEL captive I, in sorrow pent, 

And strove to find the door, i 

Beating my youth against unyielding pain ,! 

\ 

Whose echo came, and came again i 

" No more, O heart ! no more." 

Yet in my bitter, dark imprisonment, | 

Not even hope for light, ! 

With trembling hands I ever sought the door '■ 
To all that I possessed, before 

Grief locked me in its night. ■ 

But once, as groping through the gloom I went, I 
I found a cell unseen 

Till then, — silent and bare, yet like a flame 1 

And burning on the wall a Name : — ; 
Here died the Nazarene, 

Long years have passed, and I am bowed and spent 

In griefs captivity. i 

And yet no tears can quench my taper dim, ! 

Alight in memory of Him i 

Who would not be set free. I 

III 



THE FIRE. 
"Death was now the phoenix' nest," 

I SAW a burning pyre upon a hill, 
And heard a voice from out the leaping fire 
Which cried " Give more, yet more ! I must mount higher 
To reach the secret ardours of His Will." 

Of those who heard some heeded not, some came 
And offered love, and some laid down their grief. 
I saw how poor the gifts, their light how brief. 
While ever rose that crying in the flame. 

Up endless ways of fear and night I fled, 
And laid my life upon the fiery hill 
The ceaseless crying of that voice to still ; — 
Then silence fell, and heaven itself flamed red. 



112 



THE TEMPLE. 

A TEMPLE fashioned I of hours and years, 
Builded with grief, inwrought with tears. 
And down its solitary aisles, 
In solemn, hushed defiles. 
My mourning heart arranged its dead. 

Then on the altar, shadowy and still, 
I laid all I possessed, my heart, my will. 
My youth ; and kneeling there alone 
I said " My task is done. 
And I own nothing, nothing more." 

Then rose a Voice, like wind across the sea, 
' Nay J this thy shelter wilt thou leave for Me ? " 
And there upon a naked sod 
I knew the Homeless God, 
My temple, dust upon His hills. 



113 



O TROPIC WILDERNESS OF STARS. 

O TROPIC wilderness of stars, 
Whose fiery grain no man shall reap ; 
Wide, flaming harvest of the night 
Where evermore the Seasons sleep, 

Nor stir for thrill of earthly spring, 
Nor spread their wings of icy grey. 
Nor throb with summer's burdened heat, 
But drowse eternity away : — 

O sea, by whose lone, silver shore 
At last I learned a magic word. 
Your secret whispered to the sky. 
Music half-guessed, yet never heard : — 

O Birth, when to the waiting world 
There comes One More. When in the night 
A soul embarking from afar 
Steers in to find the harbour-light 



114 



That glows within some woman's breast 
Once, once my heart was cold to these, 
From Life to Death I turned away. 
With Death I drained his bitter lees, 

Refusing Faith's immortal wine. 
Now I have found my soul's desire ; 
It burns my mountains from their gloom 
And sets my frozen vales on fire. 



115 



REBORN. 1914— 191— . 

■•• Yea, it was for this reason I lay so long at Sinai to see the fire 
and the cloud, and the darkness — " 

LIFE ! we have leaned on Thee in all our days — 
Have asked for love, for peace. 
Impatient for release 
From pain, have prayed for sheltering in all our ways. 

Now stricken eyes behold Thee anguish-rent 

With sorrow past our ken 

Who are but mortal men. 

Thy darkened hour hath come. Immensity hath sent 

To Thee, more than thy creature, bitter grief, 

Whose fathomless grim sea 

Is known only to Thee ; — 

Such we know not, whose mortal hour is brief. 

Yet in our passing day, we who before 

Too careless were of Thee, 

Now burn for Calvary, 

For pilgrimage on hills of sacrifice for evermore. 



116 



DUST. i 

STRANGE, tremulous frame of Man ! the heart's faint clay 
So soon to crumble in the dreamless fields, j 

Dust with their dust, dead ashes of desire, \ 

No spark, no gleaming embers left where once was fire. 

I wonder — marvel that so brave a cup 

Is hollowed from the sod, such passionate wine j 

Should spring from earth for His stern sacrament; j 

That dust should sin, and weep, and sorrow, and repent, I 

Should strain swift-blinding eyes to look on Him ; j 

Dust yearn and labour, thrilling all its days I 

For one touch of His Hand : — yet, when He wills j 

Be lost within the winds, adrift upon the hills ! j 



117 



SACRIFICE. 

HOW long, O God, wilt Thou Thy secret keep 
From us, who groping up the cruel steep 
Of darkened bitter years, 
Still cry to Thee for light before we sleep ? 

Is it a war Thou wagest with some foe 
Beyond the power of mortal mind to know, 
And in Thy lonelier night 
Art Thou too, toiling, as we toil below ? 

I dream that in Thy hidden battle- world 

Hang solemn bannered gleams of Hope unfurled — 

And, slaying Death and Sin, 

Men's souls, like quivering piteous spears are hurled. 

If dreams be true, then may Thy Will be done 

In me, who of that endless army one 

Now give one life the more ; 

Use it, O Lord, before my course be run. 

Take up my loving will, yea, lift this blade 

Of trembling steel which in Thy forge was made. 

Fling it on Sin and Death : — 

Though broken, lost, I shall not be afraid. 



ii8 



Printed at The Vincent Works, Oxford. 



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